krangodance

i'm sure most of you have read that cornell coach, mike schafer, has been suspended for one game for his comments after a loss to rpi last week. i just finally got around to reading up on the comments and i have to say, this suspension is ridiculous. here's the story: http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20...LOGS05/90314007 this doesn't sound like a coach who's disgruntled by a loss, this sounds like a coach who is letting his honest opinion be heard because he feels it's necessary if his league has any chance of bettering it's own officiating. it sounds like the ecac runs their league like the chinese government. speak out against the league and you'll be punished, whether you're right or not. i'm glad the wcha isn't like this. we've had our share of poor officiating over the past couple years, but coaches say something about it and, in my opinion, the officiating crew takes it to heart and tries to do better. i think the officiating in the wcha during the second half of this season has been better than it was during the first half of the season. i believe that is because of coaches gripes. since when is a member of a sports league not allowed to point out discrepencies in the league? the thing is, if his claims didn't have merit, then the ecac has nothing to worry about since everybody would call him out on it. for example, when don lucia goes off on how the sioux play to agressively, then says the same thing about their opponent the following weekend, everybody knows that's just scapegoating. therefore, if schafer is not making a legitimate point, the ecac has nothing to worry about as the masses will speak up on their behalf. at the same time, if schafer's comments are accurate, then the league should look into it. in either case, a suspension is irresponsible on the part of the league. my guess, based on his words and reputation in the league, schafer's words speak to the truth and i commend him for standing up against a league that he likely knew would rather punish somebody for speaking out against the all-powerful ecac, then actually investigate the claims. my guess is time will prove mr. schafer was in the right; or at least the officials will clean up their act because of his words.

i made one error. i ran this with duluth beating minnesota. if the minny wins that game, then the sioux have to beat the gophers in order to keep the number one seed chance alive.

i know there are too many permutations at this point to even begin to cover them all, but i did notice that as long as the following happens, und will likely get a number one seed in a regional: northeastern does not win the hea tourney yale does not win the ecac tourney michigan does not win the ccha tourney wisconsin beats denver denver loses the 3rd place game every combination i ran that resulted in the above five conditions being true put und at 4th in the pwr. i ran it with und finishing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the wcha tourney and it doesn't make a difference as long as denver finishes 4th and the other three aforementioned teams don't win their respective tourneys. if northeastern, yale, and michigan all finish 2nd in their tourneys, und can still finish 4th in the pwr. therefore, the most important game on friday as far as und's pwr potential goes, is the denver/wisconsin game. that game is actually even more important than und's game. obviously as a sioux fan i'm rooting for und to win the wcha tourney before i root for wisconsin to beat denver, but statistically speaking, these comments are true. another game i'm personally very excited about is the duluth / gopher game. if the gophers lose that game, that keeps und's chances of a number one seed in the west regional alive. on the other hand, if the goofs win, und will not play there as a number one seed and i really don't want the possibility of und playing there as a number two seed, which i hope the committee would not allow to happen, but in the past they haven't seemed to care about round two match-ups and they certainly don't care about protecting number 2 seeds. in my opinion, looking at all the possibilities really is a big part of what makes sports fun, but it's also really making me want these games to just start already. college hockey post-season is definitely the best time of the year (next to steak and a blowjob day).

i didn't read the past few days entries on this topic very extensively so i apologize if i'm repeating things that have already been said/asked. if duluth beats minnesota on thursday, would that push duluth ahead of minnesota in the pwr? if so, that would be enough to keep minnesota out of the ncaa tourney, which would keep und's chances of a west regional alive, correct? also, if denver loses to wisconsin, would that cause them to fall in the pwr? i realize other games from other conferences play a part in pwr, but i know some of you are pwr experts and could shed some light on whether a du loss could move und into a number one seed come ncaa tourney time. thanks

the gophers definitely have home-ice on their side. with so many teams falling apart the last weekend of wcha play, the gophers were able to sneak out of the weekend with a 5th place conference finish, giving them home-ice next weekend. if they make it past next weekend, they essentially get home-ice at the final five since it's played in st paul. then, to top it off, if they make the ncaa tourney, they have home-ice all the way to the frozen four. as much as i hate to say it, if there was ever a year for a poor team to make a run, it's this year for the gophers. i love the xcel. it's the greatest hockey venue i've ever been in, but the fact they host the final five every year does give a clear advantage to the gophers. however, the sioux do always make a good showing (probably second best just about every year). the difference, though, is that the gopher showing is primarily students, whereas the sioux showing tends to be alumni who live in the twin cities. the gophers gettting eliminated by st cloud, as unlikely as i believe that is, would make for a less lop-sided atmosphere at the xcel the following weekend. so go huskies!!

you can watch the game for free here: http://webcast-1.gci.net:8080/ramgen/broadcast/GCI-hockey.rm

if the goofs do sneak in you'll have no problem selling them. they're the biggest bunch of fair-weather fans on the planet. it's funny actually. i live in mpls and back in november friends and co-workers of mine were talking all kinds of trash about how awesome the gophers are and how the sioux were stinkin' it up. cut to last week and i confronted a few of them. without fail every one of them said something along the line of "who cares, i don't really watch college hockey anyways". how lame is that? for umn fans, though, that's sop. anytime a gopher sport is heating up, i'm surrounded by "die-hard" fans. on the other hand, once their team starts slipping, they don't care anyways. what a joke. i know there are true gopher hockey fans out there, but overall they can't compare to a sioux hockey fan. in fact, trying to find a fair-weather sioux hockey fan is nearly impossible. win or lose, sioux hockey fans have their team's back. that's the way it should be.

that's an excellent point. aside from the goofs, the sioux would def draw the largest crowd to mpls among wcha teams, especially compared to denver. duluth might get the nod over us though, depending on where we each end up. if the sioux sweep this weekend and the gophers don't improve drastically in the pwr, my guess is we're in the west regional. i'm getting excited just thinking about all the great hockey that's still left to be played. i think i've pin-pointed the two reasons a prefer college hockey to the nhl (i know this is off topic). 1. i went to und so my vested interest is larger and 2. nhl games are played every day. it's too hard to track. college hockey is more like football in that most games are only played on the weekend so you can keep up with them easier. i wish one of the cable or satellite companies would offer a college hockey package. they'd get my business.

that's an okay option, but you don't have a one-look view of all games.

that one looks pretty good. have you used it? if so, does it update pretty often during the games? thanks

i think they would put us in the west regional only if we finish ahead of denver, but i'm not certain of that. we likely will have to finish ahead of all wcha teams in the pwr and the gophers would have to miss the tournament. anybody with more smarts on the topic out there? i'm curious now myself.

it is my opinion that we won't be there unless we finish above all wcha schools in the pwr and the goofs don't make the tournament. as we all know, umn will be there if they make the tournament regardless of seed because they're the host school. if that's the case, it's doubtful that a higher seeded wcha team will be placed in that region. if denver finishes ahead of us in the pwr, i don't see the selection crew placing us in their region, but i suppose they might. i'd recommend waiting until after this weekend's games. if umn is still looking like a long shot to make the tournament and we close the gap between us and denver in the pwr, there's a decent chance we'll be playing in that region.

anybody know of a good mobile site to track college hockey scores? i've looked at cbssportsline, uscho, siouxsports, espn, foxsports, and a few others based on google searches. the problem with all of these is they don't update often enough. some of them update once or twice a period. some update at the end of each period. some update only when a goal is scored. i want a site where a can track all the games on my blackberry simply by refreshing the page when i want an update and it will show the scores and the amount of time left in the current period of each game. perhaps nothing this convenient exists, but if you know of a site that can accomodate, please pass that info on. thanks

lynn would have been best off sticking with "OK. I acknowledge that I am not a hockey fan and I've never set foot in the Ralph and I know next to nothing about cryoengineering," and no more. i consider the logo on the ice to be a great big immortalizing logo. clearly our logo was intented to honor a great native race, not offend. i mean, honestly, why would anybody name a team they support after an entity they are trying to demean? that's obviously illogical and the Sioux name and logo are most definitely in place out of respect. shame on you, lynn, for suggesting the Sioux logo and the great people it represents are offensive. would you appreciate somebody referring to your heritage as offensive? you should stop drinking from the radical kool-aid and start thinking logically.

i agree. it's kind of like fantasy football. if i beat somebody and they congratulate me, that's all fine and good. however, if i beat somebody and they start making excuses like i got lucky with a player that shouldn't have done well or they had a player on bye, yada yada yada. well, that's even sweeter because i know my win got under their skin and it feels good to know your victory stung a little. don't get me wrong, a sioux victory alone always puts a smile on my face, but that smile is just a little wider when our opponents make themselves look like pussies by crying about it. we know our players play as fair or more fair than the players on all these other teams who are wimpering about our foul play and there's no question that game time officiating the past couple years has hurt us a lot more often than it's helped us. i say let lucia and the others sniffle on each other's shoulders if it makes them feel better.

is this the link everybody has?: http://portal.gci.net/gcisports/uaa_hockey

can the bemidji/niagara game tomorrow affect the sioux's pwr?

i was just checking out colleghockeyblogs.com. they have a list on the right of the most popular stories. all seven were posted by sioux bloggers. either we all need to get lives or this is just another example of how great fans will usually make for great teams. after all, there have only been four michigan tech blogs posted in the past month and look where they're at. i suppose that was a cheap shot.

i don't view 11 teams as a scheduling issue. get rid of the "rivalries" and, instead, play five teams four times each season and five teams twice each season. alternate which five teams you play four times with the five teams you play twice year by year. this would essentially be the same as it is now only there would be no more "rivalries" and you'd play two more games per season than are played under the current scheduling system. i don't see two more games as being a problem at all since und, for example, doesn't always play ten non-conference games per season as it is. they could easily make eight non-conference games the standard or, if they wanted to play ten, they could eliminate one of the off weekends or an exhibition weekend. between und's trip to manitoba, their game against the under-18 team, the weekend off in october, and the weekend off that's coming up after the st cloud series, that's four possible weekends on which they could have scheduled another non-conference series or invitational. the tournament wouldn't even be that tricky if the team who finishes at the bottom is simply eliminated from the post-season. personally, i'd like to only see the top six make the tournament and give the top two a first round bye. i know that might be an unpopular idea because people like under-dogs, but the five and six seeds would still be under-dogs, plus the committee that picks teams for the national tournament wouldn't have an opportunity to give extra weight to games won by lower seeded teams in the conference post-season. this may be a source of disagreement, but i feel the gophers did not belong in the national tournament last year. they did not have a good season until the post-season. they did pull off a few upsets before losing to denver in the championship game, but that shouldn't erase a poor season. unfortunately, the members of the selection committee have short memories and, in my opinion, they let minnesota's run in the wcha playoffs cloud the lack of success the gophers had during the large majority of the regular season. by only letting the top six teams into the wcha tournament, the top two get a significant advantage by not playing in the first round and teams in the bottom five spots are much less likely to get an un-deserved trip to the national tournament.

if it's a source of frustration for gopher fans, i say beat it well after death. go bc!!

i actually can't get directv because of an association rule where i live. bogus. comcast sucks and i'm gonna complain all i want, despite dave's order to the contrary.